Law&Crime Sidebar - P. Diddy Says 'Freak Off' Sex Tapes Prove He's Innocent in Sex Trafficking Case

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs say they’ve reviewed sex tapes made by their client with Victim-1 in the federal indictment, believed to be Combs’ ex Casandra Ventura. The defense says the videos show no force or coercion and prove that a federal case against the rapper should be thrown out. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber got some insight on the latest filing from celebrity criminal attorney Bradford Cohen.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:If your child, under 21, has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or fatty liver disease, visit https://forthepeople.com/food to start a claim now!HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. views shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will

keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Sean Combs defense team says they reviewed the tapes. Yes, the alleged sex tapes. And they claim it proves Combs is innocent of his criminal charges. Time to break down this major update with acclaimed criminal defense attorney Bradford Cohen. Welcome to Sidebar. Presented by Law and Crime, I'm Jesse Weber. Hey, everybody, this is a law and crime legal alert.

Did you know that children are being diagnosed with serious conditions like type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and the research is potentially linking ultra-processed foods to all of this? Yeah, well, Morgan and Morgan is stepping into fight to hold these food companies. accountable with decades of experience fighting large corporations. They are ready to stand up for families who deserve justice. So if your child under 21 has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or fatty liver disease, then visit www.4thepeople.com slash food to learn more. All right, quite the update in the Sean Combs case we got to talk about. More specifically, the Sean Combs criminal case out of New York charged by federal prosecutors with sex trafficking, prostitution,

racketeering crimes. The trial currently scheduled for May 5th, 20, Now, so much of this case has been in the shadows, right, and that we don't know exactly what the evidence is per se, who the witnesses will be, the identity of the alleged victims, all of the key events, times, locations. We may get more information in the months and the weeks leading up to the trial, but right now, we got something big we got to talk about. So Sean Combs attorneys have filed a letter, filed it yesterday, we're talking about today, where they are asking the court to order the government to electronic. produced some very key evidence in this case. What? The videos of the freak-offs. You remember what these are? The prosecutors allege that Combs would intimidate, threaten, and lure women into extended sex acts with male sex workers using force, threats, or coercion, the freak-offs that Combs filmed and recorded these freak-offs. Well, the reason the defense wants this electronically produced,

the reason they want copies of this and they need the court to step in is because, under the current protective order that has been put forward in this case regarding how evidence will be viewed and disseminated, the video evidence is available for inspection only. Now, according to the defense, federal prosecutors, they refuse to produce that over to them, but Combs' lawyers write, quote, having reviewed these videos, it is now abundantly clear that they confirm Mr. Combs' innocence and that their full exculpatory value cannot be investigated and used unless they are electronically produced. The nine videos at issue are the social called freak-off tapes with victim one that the government has repeatedly referenced causing wild

speculation in the media. Contrary to what the government has led this court and the public to believe, the so-called freak-offs were private sexual activity between fully consenting adults in a long-term relationship. Like many Americans in the privacy of their own bedrooms, they sometimes filmed their sexual activity. These videos unambiguously show that the person alleged in the indictment to be victim one, not only consented, but third. enjoyed herself. And we believe victim won to be Cassandra Ventura, Did he's ex-girlfriend, who first filed that initial sexual assault lawsuit against him back in 2023. But the filing goes on to state, moreover, contrary to innumerable sensationalistic media reports, the videos do not

depict sex parties. There are no secret cameras, no orgies, no other celebrities involved, no underground tunnels, no minors, and not so much as a hint of coercion or violence. Far from the government's lurid descriptions, the videos show adults having consensual sex plain and simple. At bottom, this case is about whether victim one was or was not a willing participant in her private sex life with Mr. Combs. The videos confirm that she plainly was. Now, before we go any further, I need to bring in renowned criminal defense attorney to the stars, Bradford Cohen, who's represented celebrities like Drake, Lil Wayne, Kodak Black. Okay, so happy to have you here. I got to get your thoughts on the defense's description of these

tapes. Now, we haven't seen the tapes, but this is the defense's description and characterization of these tapes. Your thoughts? I think it's interesting because, you know, from the very beginning of this case, I was saying, I think that the original tape showing the violence against Cassie, I think the original tape was leaked by her team to show that she is a victim and not a willing participant or a co-defendant. So I've been saying that for a long time. So to hear this, that, okay, we've seen these nine videotapes and these nine videotapes kind of back up what we've been saying the whole time, that it's consensual sex between adults. It's an interesting thing to say because I think that the videotapes are going to show that Cassie probably was engaging with another individual. The videotapes are probably going to show that it wasn't a hidden camera, maybe that she was making faces or saying something to the camera,

that confirms that it wasn't a hidden camera or someone's talking on camera. All those different things definitely help his case. Is it a smoking gun, as we say? No, probably not a smoking gun because she's going to still say, listen, I was still under the control of Sean Combs. He was physically controlling me.

He was mentally controlling me. That's going to be where she goes with this whole thing. And that's where that tape of violence comes in to show that, yet, it might have looked like I was doing these things on video that I was a willing participant. But in reality, I knew if I was not a willing participant, then something else would have happened to me physically or mentally. That is exactly what I wanted to ask you about, is about how the prosecution is going to use these tapes because the defense

in their letter, they describe victim one in these videos as, quote, happy, dominant, completely in control. They write, there is no evidence of any violence. coercion, threats, or manipulation whatsoever. There is no evidence that anyone is incapacitated or under the influence of drugs or excessive alcohol consumption. There is certainly no evidence of sex trafficking. So Bradford, the government has been very specific in what these freakoffs are and why they are illegal, why it's not just group sex, but what makes it illegal?

What are they going to say that these tapes show? I mean, doesn't it have to have some element of violence? Does there have to be drug use? Is it just proving that sex workers are in those tapes? Is that sufficient? You might be right that this is just one piece of their overall case, that it's not a smoking gun. But I feel like there has to be more in the tapes to show evidence of pressure or threats. Otherwise, you know, the defense is basically, the prosecution is basically saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, if this doesn't sound right, you know, she may look like a very active, willing participant, but don't.

believe what she's saying what she's doing maybe that's the case but you can see where it gets complicated like i said by no means do i think this is any good for the state if it is the government if it is exactly what they're saying that it is if it depicts everything that they're saying if the defense is right and it depicts these things by no means is it good for the state uh for the government is the question really becomes you know how are they going to use those tapes are they using the tapes. Obviously, she's going to have to testify that she was under physical and mental abuse, and that's why she participated in these things. Whether or not a jury believes that is going to be a very big leap. But do I think that's the only evidence they have? Probably not. If they're really,

if the government is the government in the Southern District of New York, I can't imagine this is what they're hanging their hat on if it's what the defense describes. It's like one of those things that when you have a weakness in a case, the government has to decide how they're going to use that. My guess is they're going to use it to show that there were sex workers, that these sex workers were paid. I would imagine that they have the sex workers that are in the video to come in and describe what was going on or what happened before they went on tape, whether or not they had drugs or alcohol or anything else, whether or not Cassie had drugs or alcohol, whether or not, there was a discussion between Sean, Combs, and Cassie before the tape started.

So I think that the tape is going to be one portion of it, but the testimony of either the sex workers that were in the video and or Cassie is going to kind of tie it together. That's my guess. By the way, if the tape shows sex workers, is that not just in and of itself transportation to engage in prostitution, the third count that he's facing? It's still a federal charge. It's a serious charge. It's not as serious as racketeering or sex.

trafficking. But if there are sex workers in those tapes and Sean Combs and victim one, presuming it's Cassandra Ventura, are with these sex workers, does that look like a straight up conviction on that charge? Or am I wrong? You're not wrong. The issue becomes whether or not a jury really wants to convict on those things. You know, when you have cases with like, you know, you have pimps involved and you have living off the funds of prostitution and things of that nature, where there's money being exchanged and it's a large sum of money where the individual who's making money off of the prostitution, that's kind of like usually where you see federal cases go. You don't see a lot of federal cases where it's a John who hired a prostitute and they're

having sex with, you know, someone they know or a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a boyfriend, whatever it is. It's very unusual. So again, it's going to come down to the jury. Is the jury going to buy the fact that these feds are bringing a case if they can't prove anything else and their case starts falling apart is a jury going to say well he he paid $2,000 for this guy to come to Miami and have sex with his girlfriend and the girlfriend was a willing participant that's a very to me it's a hard sell i want to also move on to something else you talked about the jury they write in this letter the premise that freakoffs are inherently dangerous shows that the government seeks to police non-conforming sexual activity and that it assumes despite

all evidence to the contrary that a woman's willing participation must have been coerced. And the defense also says that they reviewed photos that victim one allegedly sent to Sean Combs, and they say it appears to reflect, quote, entirely consensual sexual activity. Bradford, how much of this trial is going to be the jury sitting there going through sexually explicit photos and sexually explicit videos and trying to determine whether or not any of this is consensual? I think it's going to be a large part. I think that...

Or let me just couple of it. Or is it the fact that the tapes exist, right? If Sean Combs had been recording this, that in and of itself shows this kind of, you know, nefarious intent that he was using it as collateral, as blackmail against victim one if she ever came forward. So how much is it going to be them looking at, you know, to see if this is all consensual and what's going on versus, hey, the fact that this stuff exists, that's enough? See, the problem that they have with the fact that this stuff exists, that's enough. what the defense is saying is that all this stuff was taken from Cassie's phone, Cassie's computer, she had a copy of it. So they're going to have to now say, okay, well, we seized his

stuff and it was on his computer, it was on his phone. The fence is saying that he didn't have possession of this stuff, that it was all Cassie's possession. So depending on where the video was found, how it was found, if he had a hard drive with all these videos in it, sure, they can say like, oh, he was hanging this over her head or he tried to, you know, blackmail, with this. But again, you can't just have just that in itself. You would need texts or phone calls or emails, something to back that up where he's threatening her saying like, hey, if you do this, I'm going to release these tapes, which doesn't sound like it makes any sense. Because if they had these tapes, think about this. If the defense had these tapes or Sean Combe had these tapes,

when the tape came out or when the accusations came out that she was not a willing participant in this sex, you don't think those tapes would have been leaked? Like, well, he would have gotten in a lot of trouble if he did that, right? Well, before the charges were even filed when she said when he, when she first hit him with the civil complaint and in that civil complaint says she was not a willing participant, she was not involved in these things, all these different kind of accusations in that civil complaint. You would at that point say, what are you talking about? He settled with, but he settled with her the next day. And if you're him, I don't want to release these videos of me, my private sex life. You know, he probably didn't want to. No, but there's a way you could leak it to make her, to make sure her version of events was questioned, right?

It's just like, like I said, just like with the video that was leaked. And I think it was leaked with the blessing of the Southern District of New York. Because normally when you're, when you're an attorney and you're representing a victim in a crime, you don't just release things or leak them. And I don't know for sure. You're talking about the CNN video. You're talking about the CNN video where Cassandra. her was beaten by Sean Combs. Correct.

And the video is horrible. I mean, no one's going to say that. There's no person on the planet that's going to say, oh, there's a redeeming quality in that video. There's something in that video that helps the defense. There's nothing in that video that helps the defense. It is horrible video. And that was the goal, in my opinion, is to show how horrible the video is, how horrible the

video is, how horrible a guy Sean Combs is. And because he's that horrible, we can then believe the next thing. is that he forced her to have sex with these prostitutes. So you're right. In the letter, they write the recordings also directly refute the allegations that Mr. Come kept these videos as collateral. And again, that refers to the allegation that Combs was keeping these recordings to protect himself against anybody speaking out.

But as lawyers say, these recordings were not a Mr. Come's devices. They were not seized from his homes. Rather, victim, one, kept those videos on her own device for years, produced them to the government herself. That's their characterization. I mean, I'm curious the defense says, hey, after the raids, We found other videos that he had in his possession. But here's what I wanted to ask you about.

So there are lines in this letter that are redacted. They are blacked out. Is that for graphic reasons or is that to protect victim one's privacy or maybe the privacy of others? It could go either way. So I don't know if it's if it's just because it's, you know, graphic. Generally, when you're writing these letters to the Southern District to a judge in the Southern District, it's you're not blacking things out because. of graphic nature, you're usually blacking them out for some sort of privacy right or something that the judge already ruled on. What I think's interesting is this move by the defense,

in my opinion, is genius, right? Because there's an order that says, hey, you can't disseminate any of this stuff. You can't leak it to the press. You can't talk about it in the press. So putting it in a motion, putting it in a letter, kind of circumvents that by saying, hey, listen, judge this is a filing if the if the government wanted to seal that filing we sent it over to the government we gave them a copy of it we sent it over to you and if there's some sort of issue with that then they should have moved to seal it right away or call chambers to say hey let's not post this and let's not have this on uh on the record until we have a discussion of what should be redacted but they didn't do that let me let me let me just clarify that so the prosecution in response just

filed a letter. And they're not directly responding to what the videos do or do not show or whether or not Sean Combs has a right for these videos to be produced to him. And we haven't even gotten to that argument yet. And it seems like they're going to file a response to that at a later date. But the prosecution argued that this defense letter violated the protective order that was being put in place by the court, that under the protective order, no portion of the videos should have been filed on the public docket without being filed under seal or without the defense first conferring with the government as to the designation. And they say neither occurred. And instead of conferring in advance or redacting all of the content related

to the videos, they say that this letter from the defense blatantly violated the protective order because it left unredacted descriptions and characterizations of material that was designated attorney's eyes only. They argue this threatens the privacy of victims. They're asking the court to remove it from the public filing and have it be refiled with redactions. You're saying the prosecution might not have a strong argument there? No, and the bell has been wrong. What are you going to do? You're going to refile it and cross some stuff out.

It's already out in the public. We already know what's in those videos. And it's not like the problem that I have with this, and I always say this, it's like you're not discussing what's in a video, but at trial, they're going to, you're going to, you're going to see the video there's going to be people in the pews that are going to be able to report on what's in the video so when when the when a court says yes we have to redact we can't file certain things and to me that always means you can't file the actual document you can't file the actual video i'm not going to give you know a portion of the video where i'm going to attach it to

a motion and you have a clickable link those things are what i believe the court usually orders a motion and a order or a motion and a letter describing what's in a video in our own terms and saying like this is why we need the physical video to me it doesn't i don't think they have a big a very strong leg to stand on with this i don't think that the judge is going to say that they violated that order because i think they have a they have a very good argument i i hate when prosecutors and they do this a lot in the government they say oh you can come to our office and review this you can come to our office and review that i don't want to come to your office to review it i want the actual document i want the actual video on a hard drive

or whatever it is because i want my people to look at it i want to see if if they can enhance things i want them to examine certain background to it so whenever they ask that that's always suspicious to me and i don't like it and i don't think the judge should allow it i want to just ask your opinion about something else so in the letter the defense writes These recordings corroborate what witnesses have told the government, namely that victim one and then the rest is blacked out, although it seems like they're saying that these witnesses and recordings allegedly proved something about victim one that is helpful to Sean Combs, right, Bradford? I mean, witnesses, they're saying witnesses have provided evidence that might hurt victim one's claims. listen the fact that matter is is that the big discussion here is whether or not it was consensual or not and i'm sure they have sex workers that were like listen to me didn't look like she was under

the influence it looked like it was consensual i have no idea i guarantee you they have witnesses that have said that now do they have witnesses on the other side that say oh she might have taken drugs before or he was bossy or he made her do this or made her do that sure i'm sure they that say that too. So, you know, whenever a defense puts forth something and says it's corroborated by the evidence, obviously they're not going to say what also hurts them. So, you know, I do think that there's going to be witnesses that are going to say it was consensual. They were in a very long-term relationship. You know, I can't imagine that there wouldn't be victims that are alleged victims that would come forward or alleged prostitutes that would come forward and say, oh, I definitely had sex with her against her will. Because that would make That looks stupid. Yeah. So, you know, I just think this is a very sticky wicket that the prosecution gets themselves involved in when they make all these wild claims during bond hearings and all these

things and these promises. And then all of a sudden, the case starts to come out and it's not what they promised. And that hurts their case. It hurts their credibility. And I guarantee you there are potential jurors that are watching this. And if they are, then during the voir dire jury selection process, they should admit that and say, yeah, I watch long crime. I know this case very well. I can't sit on the jury. Now, let me ask you this. You would hope so. Yeah, well, look, you know, we like the viewers nonetheless, but that's a

separate question. Anyway, let me ask you this. So the defense, going back to the idea of they say we are entitled to copies of these videos. So they say the federal rules of evidence support the production of these videos. And more specifically, they cite a rule 16 of criminal procedure. And there is a provision that says upon a defendant's request, the government must permit the defendant to inspect and to copy data that is within the government's possession, custody, or control, and that is material to preparing the defense. And here they argue that the videos of the freakoffs are material because that's essentially the prosecution's central point in their case, the freakoffs.

And they argue that the government hasn't presented enough of a reason to withhold the videos because it's not child pornography, it's not classified information. They said there are other ways to ensure that victim one's privacy rights are secure. But tell me which way you think Judge Arun Suburmanian's going to rule on this Bradford, because on one point you could say, look, and talk to me about whether these are Brady, they have, you know, this is a Brady right, this is a due process right. Talk to me about all that, about the defense's perspective. They have a right to all of this information to repair for the defense, whereas the prosecution will say, you're dealing with very sensitive material. This is not a lawsuit where a plaintiff has come forward and voluntarily. submitted herself for cross-examination. It's our case. We're bringing it. She's a key witness. This is going to be private information about her. Look, we're just now accusing the defense of violating the protective order and sharing details they shouldn't have. They should only have a right to view these material in an inspection format. We'll give them an opportunity to review

it, but we shouldn't have to be able to produce copies of it because it's a real danger of that. So talk to me about both sides here. All right. So a lot to unpack. So let's let's start with this. Number one is she brought a civil claim. right this would have been discoverable in the civil action but for it being settled right so number one is they would have had an entitlement to this just in the civil matter but we're going to we're going to put a pin in that for a minute you go fast forward now they're going to their argument their main argument to me is going to be listen judge you see how they filed this letter this letter it went it went right against your order they they disclose things they shouldn't have

they shouldn't be trusted at this point and that's why we can't give them a copy that That's what they're going to try and hang their hat on, my guess is, is that this letter was a violation of his order, and as such, they shouldn't be entitled to the actual physical copy. If it's me, I'm the judge, I turn over the physical copies of everything and with a strict order that nothing is to be released. It's for attorney's eyes only, et cetera, et cetera. But the long story short is they have a, they have a right, they should have an entitlement to get all the discovery, all. all the facts, all the video, all the recordings, like I said before, I always file motions whenever they say, oh, come by our place, you can inspect it. Again, I don't want to come by your place. I don't want to inspect it. These are not my pals. These are not my friends

where I'm coming over to watch, you know, a football game. I want my discovery. I want it in my office. I want my experts to review it. I want them to see if there's any issue with backgrounds, if there's any issues in the video, if there's different things that I can't see with my naked eye that my experts might be able to enhance. So all those things can't take place if I just go to their office with my expert and inspect it on the. And not only that, you know, when you go to a state attorneys or a governmental office to inspect, I never trust them not to overhear what I'm saying, that I'm what I'm looking at. What if I'm reversing it? I'm playing a certain part of the tape. I want to see, you know, number four. I want to see number five. They will,

they usually know what I'm trying to look at, and then they could try and try and figure out what my defense is. It's, to me, it's one of those things that is just natural that they should turn over everything to the defense. Now, put on top of that a layer of Brady, where the defense is saying, and for your audience, Brady information is information that helps the defense that the government or the state would have to turn over, and it is material, and it goes to the heart of the defense. defense, and that's what they're saying this is. They're saying it is Brady material. So why should I go and have to go to their office to inspect the video that I consider Brady? It just doesn't make any sense. My opinion is prior to this letter, I would say this is a no-brainer. The judge, you know, says, hey, listen, turn it over. It's for attorney's eyes only. This letter adds a little bit of a speed bump because the judge may find that, you know, hey, listen, you guys didn't cross the line, but you came very close to the line.

And that worries me about turning these videos over. But what I've seen from this judge is that he's extremely fair. He thinks about things. He reads the law. He's knowledgeable about the law. And my opinion is he's going to let that. He's going to turn these over. The government's going to be required to turn over all the video, all the audio.

And he's going to say attorney's eyes only. All right. Well, we shall see. This is a very big development, like I said in this case. Bradford Cohen. You're the best. Thanks so much for coming on. really appreciate you taking the time to break down every aspect of this. And like I said,

I had so much to talk to you about before we were recording. I was like, we have so much to get to, got to everything that I wanted to ask you about. Thanks so much. Thanks, Ben. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.